For more than 250 years, one of the most tragic periods in the history of the development of America stretched out, when millions of black Africans were brought here by force, shifting all the hard work onto their shoulders, and this was considered quite normal. This manifestation of barbarism is terrifying in its scale, organized character, and, most importantly, inhuman attitude towards slaves.
The life of a slave is cruel exploitation, abuse, bullying and humiliation. But still, the living conditions in each specific case depended on the owner, some of the slaves were more fortunate, some less, and some were unlucky at all.
Former slaves who lived to old age recalled:
Mary Armstrong, Texas, 91
“I was born in St. Louis, [Missouri]. My mother belonged to William Cleveland and Polly Cleveland, and they were the meanest whites in the world - they constantly beat their slaves. That old Polly, she was a natural devil, and she whipped my sister, who was nine months old, just a baby, to death. She took off the diaper and began to beat my sister until the blood began to flow - simply because she cried like any child and her sister died … And old Cleveland used to chained blacks to flog them, and sprinkled salt and pepper on them, to, as he said, "season". And when he sold a slave, he smeared his lips with fat, so that it seemed that the slave was well fed, he is strong and healthy. ".
Nice Pugh, Alabama, 85
Promotional video:
“The life of the blacks was then happy. Sometimes I want to go back there. As I see now that glacier with butter, milk and cream. As a stream murmurs over the stones, and above it the willows. I can hear the turkeys cackling in the yard, the chickens running and bathing in the dust. I see a creek next to our house and cows who have come to drink and cool their feet in shallow water. I was born into slavery, but I was never a slave. I worked for good people. Is this called slavery, white gentlemen?"
The flourishing of the slave trade with Africa began after the establishment of the plantation economy. At the beginning of the 16th century, there was a great demand for labor for the rapidly expanding plantations (sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco …). It was from this period that the slave trade began to take on a huge scale.
Africans, forcibly torn away from their homeland, were transported mainly to plantations in three vast regions of America - to Brazil, the West Indies (Caribbean) and the British North American colonies.
Trade at that time was carried out along the so-called "golden triangle": slaves were taken out of Africa, sold in South America and purchased there raw materials, which in North America were exchanged for goods produced in their colonies, and all this was taken to Europe. And again with trinkets we went to Africa for living goods. This was mainly done by large traders in England and Holland.
Capturing Africans and sending them on ships to America
According to various sources, more than 12 million Africans were brought to the territory of the American continent. Their sale was put on stream, in Africa even whole farms were created on which, like cattle, slaves were raised …
Arab slave traders attack the village to capture most of its inhabitants (East Africa, 1871)
Column of bound Africans under armed guard (Central Africa, 1861)
Column of shackled African slaves with a load on their heads, guarded by foot slave traders (East Africa, 1891)
On the upper deck of a ship for the transport of African slaves (first half of the 19th century)
When loading on ships, in order to save, the holds were packed full, food and drink were given very little. Millions of people simply died, unable to withstand such conditions. Brazil was one of the largest importers of human goods and experienced the most cruel treatment of slaves.
Market in one of the cities of Brazil (1820s)
Plantation work
Basically, slaves were brought in for very hard work on the plantations. Slaves were quite inexpensive, so their life was not valued at all, the planters treated them like cattle, trying to squeeze out of them as much as possible.
Harvesting sugar cane (Antigua, 1823)
Slaves picking cotton (US South, 1873)
Rice Harvesting (US South, 1859)
Slaves Harvesting Coffee (Brazil, 1830s)
For an attempt to escape or for unfulfilled work, the slaves were severely beaten, and their children's hands were chopped off.
Peter, a slave from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, circa 1863.
Even very young children were forced to work, as soon as they began to walk.
Kid picking cotton
With such an unbearable load, people died after 6-7 years, and the owners bought new ones to replace them.
Slave dwellings
Log home of a slave family (South USA, 1860s)
At the entrance to the slave dwelling (Brazil, 1830s)
Evening leisure in the slave settlement (Louisiana, 1861-65)
Other slave professions
Slaves - porters transporting their master (Brazil, 1831)
Black Cook (Virginia, 1850)
Shoemaker Slave (Virginia, 1850)
Domestic servants with their master's children (South Carolina, 1863)
Liberation from slavery
Sometimes it happened that the slaves were given freedom.
A lady in a palanquin with two slaves, Brazil, state of Bahia, 1860.
The two men in the photo are already freed slaves. Lending clothes and hats, they pose for the photographer.
The owners could free some of their slaves for various reasons. Sometimes this happened after the death of the owner according to his will and concerned only devoted slaves who conscientiously worked for him for many years. Usually these were persons especially close to the owner, with whom he often communicated - house servants, secretaries, attendants, as well as female slaves, associated with him by long-term intimate relationships, and children born from them.
Smuggling slave trade
Back in 1807, the British Parliament passed a law abolishing the intercontinental slave trade. Ships of the Royal Navy began to patrol off the coast of Africa to prevent the transport of dark-skinned slaves to America.
Between 1808 and 1869, a division of the Royal Navy in West Africa captured over 1,600 slave ships and freed approximately 150,000 Africans.
Rescued East African slaves on the crowded deck of HMS Daphne, a British naval vessel, off the coast of Zanzibar. 1868 year
Despite this, it is believed that another 1 million people were enslaved and transported during the 19th century. When a patrol ship appeared, traders mercilessly threw Africans into the water.
Slaves who are hastily thrown overboard by American smugglers and drowned in the depths of the sea at the sight of the approach of a British warship (first half of the 19th century)
The photographs at the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth show six Africans who fled and sailed from a slave village in canoe in October 1907 when they learned that an English ship was sailing nearby. One of the fugitives fled right in the shackles in which he was chained for three years.
Rescued fugitives aboard HMS Sphinx. 1907 year
The shackles are removed from the slave
After that, the British detained two slave traders on the shore.
The arrest of an Arab slave trader
The slavery system existed in the United States from 1619 to 1865. In 1850, the first step towards the abolition of slavery was taken - the import of slaves was banned. And after the Civil War of the North and the South in December 1865, at the initiative of President Lincoln, domestic slavery was abolished. The latest slavery on the American continent was abolished in Brazil, and it happened in 1888.